In the language of the Church, both in the Liturgy and in her universal preaching, Mary is not only Mother and Mediatrix but Queen of all men and even of the angels and the whole universe.
In what sense is she a queen?
In a true or in a merely metaphorical sense?
It should be recalled first that God alone has universal kingship over all things through His Essence: He governs all things and leads them to their end.
Jesus and Mary share in this Divine Kingship. Even as man, Jesus shares in it for three reasons: because of His Divine Personality, because of His fulness of grace which overflows on men and angels, and because of His victory over sin, Satan and death. He is King of all men and of all creatures including the angels, who are “His angels.” Thus He says (Mark 13:26): “And then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds, with great power and glory. And then shall He send his angels . . . For Jesus is Son of God by nature, whereas the angels are but God’s servants and adopted sons. Jesus has said too of Himself: “All power is given to me in Heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18), and we read in the Apocalypse that He is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” (Apoc. 19:16).
HER QUEENSHIP IN GENERAL
Can it be said of Mary, since her Assumption especially, and her crowning in Heaven, that she shares in God’s universal Kingship in the sense that she is Queen of all creatures in subordination to Christ?
She could certainly be called a queen in the wide sense of the term by reason of her spiritual qualities and her fulness of grace, of glory and of charity which raise her above all other creatures. It is quite customary to use the words king and queen to designate persons of such eminence. Her motherhood of Christ the King would also entitle her to be called a queen—still in a wide sense of the term at least.
But would it not appear that she is a queen in the literal sense of the term by the fact of having received royal authority and power? Has she not, in dependence on Jesus and through Him, not only a primacy of honor in regard to the angels and saints, but a real power to command both angels and men? This is, in fact, what emerges from an examination of Tradition as expressed in the preaching of the universal Church, the Fathers, the statements of different Popes, the Liturgy. There are theological arguments besides in favor of the affirmative answer.
The Fathers of both East and West referred frequently to Mary under such titles as Domina, Regina, Regina nostrae salutis. It is sufficient to mention a few among many: in the East SS. Ephrem, Germanus of Constantinople, Andrew of Crete, John Damascene; in the West St. Peter Crysologus, the Venerable Bede, St. Anselm, St. Peter Damien, St. Bernard. The same titles occur also in the works of the theologians: in St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Gerson, St. Bernadine of Siena, Denis the Carthusian, St. Peter Canisius, Suarez, St. Grignon de Montfort, St. Alphonsus. Different Sovereign Pontiffs have often used the same expressions.
The Roman and Oriental liturgies proclaim Mary Queen of the heavens, Queen of angels, Queen of the world, Queen of all the saints. Among the mysteries of the Rosary commonly recited in the Church since the 13th century the last of all is that of the crowning of Our Lady in Heaven—a scene represented in one of Fra Angelico’s most beautiful frescoes.
The arguments adduced by theologians to prove that Mary has universal Queenship in the proper, non-metaphorical sense of the term, are conclusive. They may all be reduced to the following three.
Jesus Christ is King of the universe, even as man, in virtue of His Divine Personality. But Mary as Mother of God made man belongs to the hypostatic order and shares in the dignity of her Son, for His Person is the term of her divine motherhood. Hence she shares connaturally, as Mother of God, in His universal Kingship. Our Blessed Lord owes it to Himself to recognise His Mother’s title in gratitude.
A second argument is that Jesus is King of the universe by His fulness of grace and by the victory which He won over Satan and sin by His humility and His obedience unto death, “For which cause God hath exalted Him. . . .” But Mary was associated with His victory over Satan, sin, and death by her union with Him in His humiliations and sufferings. She is therefore really associated with Him in His Kingship.
The same conclusion may be arrived at by considering the close relationship in which Mary stands to God the Father, of whom she is the first adoptive daughter and the highest in grace, and God the Holy Ghost through whose operation the word took flesh in her womb.
It has been objected that the mother of a king, the queen-mother, is not by that simple fact queen in the strict sense of the term: she has nothing of royal power. Neither then has Mary. We have answered this objection already. There is no parity between the two cases. A queen-mother is simply the mother of a child who later became king. But Mary is the mother of Him who from the instant of His conception is King of the universe by His hypostatic union and His fulness of grace. Besides, Mary was associated closely with the victory by which He obtained universal kingship as a right of conquest, even though He possessed it already as Son of God. Mary is therefore associated with His Kingship in a true, even if in a subordinate, manner.
Many consequences follow from this truth. As universal King, Jesus has power to establish and promulgate the New Law, to propose revealed doctrine, to judge the living and the dead, to give souls sanctifying grace and all the virtues. Mary shares in this universal kingship especially by dispensing in an interior and hidden manner the graces which she merited in dependence on Jesus. She participates in it exteriorly also by the fact that she gave on earth the example of all the virtues, that she helped to enlighten the Apostles, and that she continues to enlighten us when, for example, she manifests herself exteriorly in sanctuaries such as those of Lourdes, La Salette, and Fatima. Theologians note that she does not seem to share in any special way in the royal judicial power of inflicting punishment for sin, for Tradition calls her not the Mother of justice but the Mother of mercy, a title which is hers in virtue of her mediation of all graces. Jesus seems to have kept to Himself the reign of justice as is becoming Him who is the “judge of the living and the dead.”
Mary has a radical right to universal queenship by the fact of her divine motherhood, but the divine plan was that she should merit it also by her union with her suffering Son, and that she should not exercise it fully before being crowned queen of all creation in Heaven. Her royalty is spiritual and supernatural rather than temporal and natural, though it extends in a secondary way to temporal affairs considered in their relation to salvation and sanctification.
We have seen how Mary exercises her queenship on earth. She exercises it in Heaven also. The essential glory of the blessed depends on Jesus’ merits and hers. She contributes to their accidental glory—as well as to that of the angels—by the light she communicates to them, and by the joy they have in her presence and in the realization of what she does for souls. To both the angels and the saints she manifests Christ’s plan for the extension of His Kingdom.
Mary’s queenship extends to purgatory, for she prompts the faithful on earth to pray for the souls detained there and to have Masses offered for them. She herself offers their prayers to God, thereby increasing their value. She applies the fruits of the merits of Jesus and of herself to the Holy Souls in Jesus’ name.
Her queenship extends to the demons too who are obliged to recognise her power, for she can make their temptation cease, can save souls from their snares, and can repulse their attacks. “The demons suffer more,” says St. Grignon de Montfort, “from being conquered by the humility of Mary than by the Omnipotence of God.” Her reign of mercy extends to Hell itself, as we have seen, in the sense that the lost souls are punished less than they deserve, and that on certain days—including possibly the Assumption—their sufferings become less fearful.
Thus Mary’s queenship is truly universal. There is no region to which it does not extend in some way.
SPECIAL ASPECTS OF MARY’S QUEENSHIP
Mary’s universal queenship comes home to us in a more concrete form if we consider its different aspects as presented in the Litany of Loreto: Queen of angels, of patriarchs, of prophets, of martyrs, of confessors, of virgins, of all the saints, of peace.
QUEEN OF ANGELS
Mary is Queen of the angels since her mission is higher than theirs. They are but servants, whereas she is the Mother of God. She is as much above them as the word “mother” surpasses the word “servant.” She alone with the Father can say to Jesus: “Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee.”
She is higher than the angels also by her fulness of grace and glory, which surpasses that of all the angels united. She is purer than they, for she has received purity for others as well as for herself. She was more perfect than they and more prompt in her obedience to God’s commandments and in following His counsels. By her co-operation in the redemption she merited de congruo for the angels themselves the accidental graces by which they help us to save our souls and the joy which they experience in doing so.
As Justin of Miechow well remarks, if the angels have served Our Lord, how much more did not Mary serve Him, she who conceived and bore Him, who cared for Him, who carried Him into Egypt to escape Herod’s anger?
She surpasses the angels in this also, that they have each care of one soul or one community, but she is the guardian of all men and of earth in particular. She is, more than they, the messenger of God who brought us not a created word but the Uncreated Word.
Archangels are appointed to protect this or that city: Mary protects all cities and all churches in them. Principalities are the custodians of provinces: Mary has the whole Church under her protection. Powers repel demons: Mary has crushed the serpent’s head; she is terrible to the demons by the depth of her humility and the ardour of her charity. Virtues perform miracles as God’s instruments: but the greatest miracle was to conceive the Incarnate Word for our salvation. Dominations command the lower angels: Mary commands all the heavenly choirs. The Thrones are those angels in whom God dwells in a specially intimate way: Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, is the Seat of Wisdom, and the Blessed Trinity reside in her more familiarly than in the highest angel—that is to say, in a way proportionate to her consummated grace.
She surpasses even the Cherubim and Seraphim. The Cherubim shine with the splendor of their knowledge: but Mary has penetrated deeper than they into the divine mysteries since she has the light of glory in a degree far above theirs. She has carried in her womb Him in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. She lived with Him for thirty years on earth, and in Heaven she is nearest of all to Him.
The Seraphim burn with the flame of love: but more ardent still is the living flame of Mary’s charity. She loves God more than all creatures together, for she loves Him not only as Creator and Father but as her Infant and her treasured Son.
She is therefore the Queen of angels. They serve her faithfully, surround her with veneration, marvel at her tender solicitude for each one of us and for the whole Church. Her charity, her zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls are the objects of their intense admiration.
Such is the substance of Justin of Miechow’s treatise on Mary, Queen of Angels.
QUEEN OF PATRIARCHS
The superiority of Mary to Adam in the state of innocence is clear from all that has been said thus far. She was higher in grace than he, and had as well the principal effects of original justice: subordination of the sensibility to the higher faculties, and subordination of these latter to God. Mary’s charity was greater from the first instant of her conception than that of Adam in the state of innocence, and she had in addition the special grace of freedom from all sin however slight, even though she was conceived in passible and mortal flesh.
Her intimacy with God was much closer than that of Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. Abraham’s most heroic act was that of preparing himself to immolate his son Isaac, the son of the promise. It was far more for Mary to offer Jesus who was dearer to her than her own life: nor did an angel come to arrest Jesus’ immolation as one did in the case of Isaac. Her title of Mother of God, her charity and the heroicity of all her virtues make Mary shine as a star without compare among the patriarchs.
QUEEN OF PROPHETS
Prophecy in the strict sense of the term is the gift of knowing with certainty and predicting the future under divine inspiration. It was given to many in Old Testament times. In the New Testament St. John and St. Paul were both prophets and apostles. Sacred Scripture tells us of certain holy women also who received the gift of prophecy: Mary the sister of Moses, Deborah, Anne, mother of Samuel, Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist.
Mary is Queen of prophets. She foretold the future in the Magnificat when she sang: “Behold from henceforth all nations shall call me blessed.” Of her the prophets spoke when they announced the mystery of the Incarnation. She bore in her womb Him of Whom the prophets spoke, and she heard from His own lips the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
She had the gift of prophecy in the highest degree after Our Blessed Lord, and at the same time she had perfect understanding of the fulness of the revelation which He communicated to the world.
QUEEN OF APOSTLES
In what sense is Mary Queen of the twelve Apostles? Her dignity as Mother of God surpasses theirs. The apostolate is a form of ministry. But according to the phrase of St. Albert which we have quoted already, Mary is not simply God’s minister since as Mother of the Saviour she is still more closely associated with Him. After the Ascension the Apostles had need of direction, of counsel, and no one was better equipped than Mary to give it to them. She consoled them in their grief at the departure of Our Lord when they felt lonely and helpless in face of the task of the evangelisation of the pagan world. Jesus had left them His mother to help them. She was for them, it has been said, a second paraclete, a visible paraclete, a mediatrix; she was their guiding star in the midst of the tempest of persecution that raged about them. She was truly a mother to them. None of them ever left her side without having been enlightened and consoled, without having been strengthened. By her example in suffering calumnies, by her experience of the things of God she sustained them in times of trial and persecution.
There was no one who could talk as she did of the virginal conception of Christ, of His birth, His infancy, His hidden life, of what took place in His soul on the cross. This is what prompted St. Ambrose to say: “It is not strange that St. John should have spoken better of the mystery of the Incarnation than the others did; he lived at the source of heavenly secrets.”
He lived in Mary’s company what he speaks of in the fourth gospel.
QUEEN OF MARTYRS
The title of Queen of Martyrs has been applied to Mary by SS. Ephrem, Jerome, Ildephonsus, Anselm and Bernard. The implied allusion is to her martyrdom of heart of which Simeon spoke: “Thy own soul a sword shall pierce.”
Mary’s grief was proportionate to her love for her Son. She suffered when He was called a seducer, a violator of the Law, one possessed by a devil; she suffered inexpressibly when Barabbas was preferred to Him, when He was nailed to the cross, when He was tortured by the crown of thorns, when He was parched with thirst; she shared in all the anguish of His priestly and victim soul. She felt as it were all the blows Jesus received in His scourging and crucifixion, for her love made her one with Him. As Bossuet exclaims: “One cross was enough to make martyrs of Him and her.” They offered but one sacrifice, and since she, for her part, loved Jesus more than herself, she suffered more than if she herself had been the victim. All this she endured so as to confess her faith in the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, and in her the faith of the Church was strong at that moment, stronger and more ardent than in all the other martyrs.
We should remember that Mary’s sufferings had the same cause as her Son’s—the accumulated sins of men and their ingratitude which made the sufferings to be partly of no avail. We must remember too that she suffered from the time of the conception of the Saviour, still more after Simeon’s prophecy, still more as she saw the opposition to Jesus mounting, and most of all at the foot of the cross. But even then, even when her soul was inundated with grief, her zeal for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls caused her a holy joy at the sight of her Son consummating His redemptive work by the most perfect of holocausts.
Lastly, she has helped the martyrs in their torments. She is Our Lady of a happy death because of her care for the dying who call on her. Much more does she help those who die to profess their faith in the Redeemer.
QUEEN OF CONFESSORS MARY AND PRIESTS
She is Queen of all who confess their faith in Jesus for she herself confessed the same faith more than any other creature.
But we shall speak principally in this section of what she is to the priests of Our Blessed Lord. To represent Jesus truly, the priest who brings Him down on the altar and offers Him sacramentally in Holy Mass should unite himself more and more to His sentiments, to the oblation which is always living in the Heart of Jesus “always living to make intercession for us.” In addition, he should, through the different sacraments, distribute the grace which is the fruit of the merits of Jesus and Mary.
Because of the work to which they are called, Mary is specially zealous for the sanctification of priests. She sees that they share in the priesthood of her Son and she watches over their souls that the grace of their ordination may bear fruit in them, that they become living images of the Saviour. She protects them against the dangers which surround them and lifts them up if they happen to stumble. She loves them as sons of predilection, just as she loved St. John who was committed to her on Calvary. She attracts their heart to herself to raise it up and to lead them to greater intimacy with Jesus, so that one day they may be able to say in all truth: “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Mary helps priests in a special way at the altar so that they may become more fully conscious of their union with the Principal Offerer. She is spiritually present at that sacramental oblation which perpetuates the substance of the sacrifice of the Cross, and she distributes to the priest the actual graces he needs to minister with recollection and in a spirit of self-donation. In that way she helps the priest to share in Jesus’ victimhood as well as in His priesthood. All this means to form priests to the image of the Heart of Jesus.
With Jesus she arouses priestly vocations and cultivates them. She knows that where there are no priests there is no Baptism, no Confession, no Mass, no Christian Marriage, no Extreme Unction, no Christian life: without the priest the world returns to paganism.
Our Lord who has willed to have need of Mary in the work of salvation has willed also to have need of priests, and Mary forms them in holiness. We can see her action clearly in some of the saints who were priests—St. John the Evangelist, St. Bernard, St. Dominic, the Apostle of the Rosary, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Grignon de Montfort, St. Alphonsus.
QUEEN OF VIRGINS MARY AND CONSECRATED SOULS
Mary is Queen of Virgins since she had the virtue of virginity in the most eminent degree and preserved it in the conception, birth, and after the birth of the Saviour. She teaches souls the value of virginity. It is a true virtue, a spiritual force, something more than a mere good inclination of the sensibility. She teaches them that virginity consecrated to God is higher than simple chastity since it promises integrity of the body and purity of the heart for the whole of life—a consideration which led St. Thomas to say that virginity stands in much the same relation to chastity as munificence does to simple liberality, since it is a perfect gift of self, and sign of a perfect generosity.
Mary safeguards virgins from danger, she supports them in their difficulties and leads them, if they are faithful, to great intimacy with her Son.
What is her role in regard to consecrated souls? The Church calls such souls “spouses of Christ.” It follows that Our Lady is their perfect model. Following her example they should live a life of prayer and of reparation in union with Our Blessed Lord. They should become also consolers of the afflicted, remembering that the consolation which they afford in a supernatural spirit to the suffering members of Christ is afforded to Himself and makes amends for the ingratitude, coldness, and even hatred of so many. Thus, these souls are called to reproduce the virtues of Mary and to continue in some measure her work for Our Blessed Lord and for souls.
If consecrated souls but know and follow Mary’s guidance they find through her a wonderful compensation for the privations their lives impose on them, and which, though all accepted in advance, are felt most keenly only as they come one by one, day after day. Through Mary they can aspire to a certain spiritual motherhood, which is an image of her own, in regard to all—the poor, the afflicted, sinners—who are in need of spiritual care. Our Blessed Lord alluded to that spiritual motherhood when He said: “I was hungry, and you gave me eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in: naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matt. 25:35–36).
Spiritual motherhood in the life of contemplation and reparation may be practised also by the apostolate of prayer and suffering which makes fruitful the exterior apostolate for the conversion of sinners and the extension of the reign of Christ. A hidden, interior apostolate can be one of great sufferings; but Our Lady will show how to bear them and she will afford some glimpse of their effects in souls.
Another work of Mary’s is to help Christian mothers to bring up their children to a life of faith, confidence in God, and love. She helps them also to win back their erring children, as St. Monica did St. Augustine.
Thus, we see the universality of Mary’s Queenship. She is Queen of all the saints by virtue of her unique mission in God’s providential plan, and her fulness of grace and glory. She is Queen of all the saints, the unknown as well as the known, the uncanonised as well as the canonised, the Queen of all those who strive after holiness on earth, whose trials and joys are so well known to her, and the crown of whose merits she foresees even now.
